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Anyone here using Bitwig?

Nate Johnson

Nate Johnson

Senior Member
I just noticed its existence. Saw a screen capture on a YT video and was like what is that? Looks puurrty.

Seems like its closer to the Ableton concept, which I auditioned for a while sometime last year and actually got along with quite well. It was just too expensive (Suite version) to keep in addition to Logic.

Just bored and curious.
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I bought it when it was on sale. I like it a lot, but it's a CPU pig. I use it for editing and sound design but ultimately I kind of regret not testing it heavily for CPU before pulling the trigger. It's on of those DAWs where it behaves fine until you hit its tipping point, and the tipping point is about half as many VIs as I can run in Logic on the same machine. Even Live, (which I've used for years) gives m a higher instrument count. I'd demo it aggressively if entertaining the idea of using it as a DAW....
 
Demoing now....there's already things I really like.

- Being able to drag a midi clip straight into a sampler device is dope. Can't do that in Logic!
- I appreciate the layout of the device menus. Very easy to zero in on instrument selections!
- I like the audio editing view. Nice and big, clear waveform view.

I haven't gone heavy yet, so I can't comment on CPU usage yet.
 
Wenlone said:
Sound design heaven.
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Yes, I agree. It should be noted that Bitwig is a modular and unified music production system. I mostly use it for setting up interactive environments for live performances. But for the production of recorded music, I'm preferring Cubase on Windows and Logic on Mac. I also have been using Ableton for a long time, but in my praxis Bitwig now feels much more intuitive.

In Logic you have the Environment and in Cubase you have the Logic Editor, but in Bitwig any kind of effect routing is built into the system; like setting up modulation from LFO, input amplitude, note numbers etc etc. When using the app it's really obvious that it was designed by seasoned audio and midi hackers that wanted to grab the most useful features from previous DAWs and combine All Best Features in a new user-friendly modular DAW.

BTW, anything is less CPU effective than Logic :) and it's still a bit slow to achieve Track Freeze in Bitwig (much faster in both Cub n Log)
 
Bitwig is my main DAW. It's not perfect but I really like it. And although sound design and synthy stuff is one of its strengths, I actually find its flexibility great for mixing. For example, if I want to have the mix compress a little whenever the vocal comes in, but only in the middle channel and not the sides, it's very easy using Bitwig's built in tools.
 
In one of those bored late night eBay moments I recently bought a cheap surface pro 3 i5 with 8GB memory . Bitwig seems to run fine on this relatively underpowered device. It also has a neat tablet mode that seems to work well with the surface pros touchscreen.

I think bitwig offers a neat alternative to other DAWs - the Grid environment looks like a fun place to experience with synth and fx designs. The ability to apply modulation to any element offers some interesting creative options.

I don’t see myself leaving Logic as my main DAW but I think bitwig offers something different and look forward to exploring.

its a niche piece of software but I think it has its place.
 
ghobii said:
I bought Bitwig a few months ago and love it. It's workflow, and modulation everywhere concept, are perfect for my sound-design-centric way of writing music. Don't see myself going back to Logic.
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This sounds like what my brain is telling me. ‘Sound-design-centric way of writing music’ is damn near the best description of what I do as well!
 
Zx81 said:
In one of those bored late night eBay moments I recently bought a cheap surface pro 3 i5 with 8GB memory . Bitwig seems to run fine on this relatively underpowered device. It also has a neat tablet mode that seems to work well with the surface pros touchscreen.

I think bitwig offers a neat alternative to other DAWs - the Grid environment looks like a fun place to experience with synth and fx designs. The ability to apply modulation to any element offers some interesting creative options.

I don’t see myself leaving Logic as my main DAW but I think bitwig offers something different and look forward to exploring.

its a niche piece of software but I think it has its place.
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Curious, how far are you able to take the Surface? Its probably just the marketing, but its the first PC machine that made me stop and go 🤔

And why can’t we ‘leave Logic?’ I had the same exact thoughts when I was experimenting with Live. I had it for 3 months, learned it, made a record with it (mostly), but ended up selling the license and ‘sticking with Logic.’ Sure, I had some quibbles with Live here and there, but it was fine, great even. And yet I wound up back in Logic.
 
Bitwig, Live and Reason will by design always be less CPU efficient. That's not a design flaw, it's a deliberate choice. These DAWs require all processing to be real time, thus preventing (most likely) a system of pre-buffering to be implemented.

I myself am growing reattached to Reason more and more. I thought, with the coming of the Rack Plugin, I would finally use it in another DAW, but instead, I got pulled back into this most inspirational piece of software. It's simplicity is such a breath of fresh air. Yesterday I started up Studio One again, but immediately felt uninspired despite it being great software. Studio One, and Cubase feel like a work environment. Reason feels like a playground.

Don't be fooled by some comments you'll find on the internet though. These are absolutely professional pieces of software, not toys. They are not meant to have every single feature one could think of. That would defeat the purpose of their simplicity.
 
DS_Joost said:
Don't be fooled by some comments you'll find on the internet though. These are absolutely professional pieces of software, not toys. They are not meant to have every single feature one could think of. That would defeat the purpose of their simplicity.
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I certainly wouldn't consider Bitwig or Live a toy. I actually went on a bit of a rant about why people who think either of these pieces of software are toys are out of touch. And people who avoid their session views ("live" views), are missing their strongest feature - non-linear composition...

My only gripe is that having a proper Kontakt template isn't feasible compared to Logic. It's great for sound design and editing, it has some great tools that make Ableton seem a decade behind. I just don't see why they won't implement a preference that enables you toggle on a pre buffer for people who aren't using the daw for live performance. If you don't need it you leave it disabled and your workflow isn't impacted, if you do the DAW becomes a lot more usable for people who want to use it as a primary DAW.

Feature wise though I'd consider Bitwig to be the most unique DAW currently available.
 
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tomorrowstops said:
Curious, how far are you able to take the Surface? Its probably just the marketing, but its the first PC machine that made me stop and go 🤔

And why can’t we ‘leave Logic?’ I had the same exact thoughts when I was experimenting with Live. I had it for 3 months, learned it, made a record with it (mostly), but ended up selling the license and ‘sticking with Logic.’ Sure, I had some quibbles with Live here and there, but it was fine, great even. And yet I wound up back in Logic.
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For me at least - that old Surface Pro 3 has been sufficient to date. I bought the device on a bit of a whim as something I could have lying around the house that I might get a chance to play with when the family have all gone to bed ;). In that respect it's working great and offers a creative environment that allows me to explore a different side of music production compared to the library music i've been recently writing as a 'paid gig'.

Great to see fellow bitwig users here on vi-control - am interested to hear about what other folk are doing with it.
 
Jeez louise, this DAW is everything I want to do. I've been playing with it all morning. The sampler is perfect. The modulation is incredible. The GUI is beautiful. So far its been as stable as Logic. Definitely feels better than Live 10 did.
 
I use it mainly for its modulation abilities and the fact that it can easily control my Eurorack gear (via an Expert Sleepers ES-8). I generally record the stuff into audio and move it into Logic - where I do most of my work. Unfortunately, I lose a lot of spontaneity and interactivity this way.... kind of a drag.

I really haven't taken the time or opportunity to get into Bitwig's scenes and loop arrangement yet. I hope to at some point. It'll be interesting to see what the new version of Logic does with loops. Maybe that would be a good introduction for me into what is being done with Bitwig already. Obviously it's going to take Logic a decade to get where Bitwig is now with modulation.

Optimally I'd like a clever combination of the best of Logic and Bitwig.

.
 
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